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Status Update

Mar 22, 2021

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Emma, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Deutsche Post DHL Group conference call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touch-tone telephone. Press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Martin Ziegenbalg, Head of IR. Please go ahead.

Martin Ziegenbalg
EVP, Investor Relations, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Thank you, and a warm welcome to everyone out there to the introduction of our sustainability roadmap. It's only two weeks after we talked about the full-year reporting. I'm glad to see many of you joining in on this important announcement. As you've seen from the invite, we've got with us three colleagues. It's Frank Appel, the Group CEO, Melanie Kreis, the Group CFO, and Thomas Ogilvie, board member in charge of HR. We're going to take you through the presentation that you have in front of you. As always, there will be time for Q&A after that. With that, right on to you, Frank.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yes. Thank you, Martin. Good morning as well from my side. Let's just go straight away to page two. There, you can see on the right our new framework, how we want to now communicate going forward our efforts under ESG. We want to create really clean operations for climate protection. We want to be a great company to work for all. We want to be a highly trusted company supported by our Go Programs to really create lasting impact for the community. To achieve that, you can see on the left side that we want to intensify a couple of things and maybe highlighting here our carbon reduction targets, which we will bring into alignment to the Paris Agreement, that means science-based target, and we want to really reduce our carbon footprint in absolute terms until 2030. We will invest EUR 7 billion.

Of course, for this year and up to 2023, it's embedded already in our guidance. Of course, in due course, it will increase over time. I'll explain later on more. Important to know as well that our short-term variable income will be related to the ESG goals as well, if the AGM will decide accordingly this year. We go to page three. It just summarizes why we think ESG is, of course, important for us. You know that we have a significant footprint in carbon, where we are 0.4% of the total industry emission and the transportation sector contribute 16% to the total global footprint. We are also a large employer with 570,000 people. That's the reason why we, of course, have to do something under the social aspect.

Governance is for us a given because we are acting in every part of the world in compliance and supplier code of conduct and these kind of things are fundamentally important to do good business for us. We have on page four a long tradition already talking about these things. I think we bring it now to a new level. We started already in 2003 with our GoHelp. We didn't call them that by then. We started to call them accordingly in 2009 when we launched our strategy 2025. We have over time introduced more elements, being aligned with the sustainability goals of the UN around zero emissions by 2050. GoTrade we introduced last year. Now we really today introduce our new sustainability commitments. On page five, you see the full picture of the way we want to communicate that.

Our purpose, connecting people, improving lives, we have already since 2009. In the center, you see the three dimensions we will lead you through in detail, on the bottom, our supporting initiatives to giving back to communities. That brings me to the first element, lean operations for climate protection on page seven. Just where we start from today on is that we have 27 million tons, metric tons, of Scope one, two, and three. We will now adapt to a science-based target that will lead to a significant increase in our footprint because you will go away from tank-to-wheel to well-to-wheel, it will increase our carbon footprint by about 3 million. You can see that on the right. In the last two years, we were pretty good actually reducing our carbon footprint.

It will now go up. Of course, due to the growth we expect in the next years, our footprint will increase. On the bottom right, you see that two-thirds of our footprint are coming from the air transportation of course, Express and DGF. On page eight, the commitment. It's based on the science-based targets in alignment with the Paris Agreement. We assume that we will grow our carbon emission well-to-wheel to 46 million tons if we wouldn't do anything. That's a quite sizable reduction need with 17 million to get to 29. That's the reason why we want to invest EUR 7 billion in OpEx and CapEx until 2030. On page nine, you see some of the targets we have defined. We want to have by 2030, 30% of the fuel should be sustainable, 60% of the fleet should be electrified.

Our new buildings should be all carbon neutral. Of course, we will offer along our different products, carbon-free and sustainable products as well. On page 10, more detail on the aviation front. Of course, Sustainable Aviation Fuel will play an important role. The refleeting of the fuel optimization through artificial intelligence and data analytics should drive that. There are different elements we want to do on the sustainable aviation front. On page 11, you see a similar page for the line haul and the last mile delivery. As I already said, 60% should be electrified. We will use either sustainable biofuel or fuel on the long haul, and we will do many other things to really optimize our fuel consumption so that we really become also much greener on the ground. Third dimension is warehouses and buildings.

We have already a lot of renewable power that I think we can do better and faster here as well. With the building design, with the automation and visibility about the energy consumptions, there are plenty of opportunities how we can make our facilities greener. Finally, on page 13, the progress we have made since we started our journey in 2008, where we said we want to be 30% more carbon efficient. We achieved that goal already in 2016. Now we are at 37, two percentage points better than last year. The old goal was 50% efficiency by 2025. Of course, we will now drop that and we'll replace it with our science-based target. The Carbon Efficiency Index, of course, is not science-based. We think it's more appropriate to move forward. The long-term goal to be carbon free by 2050 will continue from here.

With that, I hand over to Thomas, who will explain now what we want to do under a great company to work for all.

Thomas Ogilvie
Board Member for Human Resources and Labor Director, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Thank you, Frank. Good afternoon, everybody. Being a great company to work for all is not only a promise and obligation to our 570,000 employees worldwide and to the more than 2 million applicants who apply for a job every year within our company. It's also a matter of competitive advantage and strategic priority as engaged and motivated employees are the prerequisite for great service quality and our profitable network. Also more and more when it comes to applying and adhering to high social standards, a matter of selection from our customers on what we see more and more in their RFQ processes. On page 15, you see the areas we are looking at and all of the KPIs that you see there, they are steering relevant for us as a company, and by that, also part of our integrated reporting.

We look as well at the aspect of attracting, retaining best talent, strong focus on OHS, operational health and safety standards, and our lost time injury frequency, gender diversity as a steering KPI, and last but not least, the aspect of how to systematically measure, promote, and prioritize the application of high social standards and human rights. On page 16, you see in detail what's our aspiration in relation to employee engagement. In our annual global employee opinion survey, we measure employee engagement and have the aspiration to be consistently well above 80% of acceptance. Last year, we achieved this already with a score of 82. For the upcoming years, with a growing employee base, we want to keep this level at least.

On page 17, because we have also a significant appreciation from external rating agencies like a Great Place to Work or Top Employers, where we have, and you can see it on the global map, more than 100 countries where we are certified by external rating agencies as either a Top Employer or Great Place to Work, which shows also our global aspiration and global execution capability. On page 18, going to health and safety, we see already a positive trend in the reduction of our LTIFR rates. That's something where we want to continue this trend and accelerate it to be well below 3.1 LTIFR by 2025.

On page 19, covering now the aspect of gender diversity and inclusion, we have not a single course model, just focusing on one indicator like gender, but truly holistic, inclusive approach so that we are an equal opportunity employer that irrespective of gender, social or cultural background, sexual preference, or religious beliefs, everybody in our company should perform up to his or her capacity, and that's what we want to foster. As one dimension, we picked our target of having at least 30% female representation in our management until 2025, which is compared to our current 23%, a step up of seven percentage points until 2025.

On page 20, you see this once again in detail what I explained before, but what I want to highlight here is that from now on, we also incorporate our commitment and endorsement of the Sustainable Development Goal from the United Nations Five of gender equality as part of our sustainability roadmap. Page 21. Briefly, we issued and published last year a comprehensive human rights policy statement, bringing together all aspects of proper business conduct when it comes to human rights-related behavior. That's something where we have now also implemented a holistic management system, ranging from training and awareness campaigns to self-assessment. That's giving a piece to the whole.

Page 22, because we not only want to be a great company to all when it comes to our employees, but also take action as corporate citizen in the communities where we operate in, that we have also strong impact with our group-wide programs, such as our volunteering programs, or also our support programs for employees in need. You're well familiar with our Go Programs, where we partnered with renowned institutions like the United Nations or SOS Children's Villages, Teach For All, to actually make a contribution beyond our own footprint of protecting the environment in the area of GoHelp for disaster management, with GoTeach for providing education to underprivileged communities, and last but not least, with GoTrade to facilitate trade globally so that people can participate in our global trade footprint.

This all together, what you can see on page 23, goes into a 1% pledge that we also decided to issue as part of our sustainability strategy, that we want to spend 1% of our net profit each year to create lasting impact via these programs that we have established since a while, to also show that we are caretaking and responsible for the communities where we operate in. With that, I would hand over to Melanie to tackle the G for governance.

Melanie Kreis
CFO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. Thank you very much, Thomas. Hello, everybody. We actually chose highly trusted company as our aspiration. We want to have the trust of our people, of our customers, of our suppliers, our business partners, the communities we work in, and the wider public. Of course, trust is nothing you just get overnight. It is something that you earn over time by doing the right thing in the right way, consistently, every day, everywhere. That's our aspiration. How do we want to do that? When we turn to page 25, if you want to be a highly trusted company, it takes good governance. It takes clear priorities and processes and measures to ensure trusted, transparent, and compliant business practices in all 220 countries and territories where we operate.

You can see in the circle on the right on page 25 a couple of measures we are focusing on. I'll go into a bit more detail on the next pages, but just high level. It is a cultural thing. It is about making sure that all our people in the relevant positions, in all managerial positions, know what we understand under compliance and compliant behavior. It is linked to data protection as a core ingredient of our training curriculum. Of course, in today's world, it's also about information security. It goes beyond us as a company. It involves our suppliers with our supplier code of conduct. Of course, we also have to measure it. If you go to page 26, just a couple of additional points.

In terms of making sure that everybody understands what we mean with right behavior, we have a core compliance curriculum, which is a mandatory training course for all our managers, and also in certain areas beyond the managerial population. That also includes a clear understanding of what data protection is about. Obviously, in today's world, one of the key questions around trust is linked to information security, where we have the aspiration to be positioned in the of our industry. As we all know, that's a clear area where if things don't go according to plan, you quickly lose trust. That's a very important element for us in the G pillar. Turning to page 27, we acknowledge that obviously, we are working with partners. Our supplier base is a very important network for us. We have had our supplier code of conduct ever since 2008.

We have refreshed it. We have updated it, and of course, now putting even more emphasis on also getting the right type of behavior from our suppliers and subcontractors, be it on our environmental aspirations, but of course also with regard to their social behavior and their governance. We are working on this in a very structured way. For example, we do a systematic data-driven risk assessment to identify what are the high-risk categories, where we have a significant spend, what are the high-risk suppliers. Of course, our aspiration is to reduce the exposure of our company and to make also sure that in those areas as well, we work with the right type of partners.

Of course, that also includes due diligence and ensuring that that is not business paper, that is also actually happening in reality. Making sure that things really happen takes me to page 28. It's probably not so surprising to hear from the CFO. If we want to make progress on the ESG KPIs, we obviously have to measure them. We need targets, we need controlling. One thing which is very important for us, and we have worked on that for quite a while, is we don't want to have a parallel reporting. We want that all relevant ESG KPIs, particularly those KPIs which we define as steering relevant, are reported ultimately through our core financial systems so that we really have a single source of truth.

One nice example is our CO₂ footprint, our CO₂ efficiency, which we have reported through our core financial system for over a decade now. Of course, that is also something which is evolving over time. When you look at the list of our ESG KPIs, we have different levels of quality. That will now take some time to get better here and broaden the portfolio of ESG KPIs. The second element on page 28 is the inclusion of ESG in risk reporting and investment evaluations. Obviously, ESG risks and opportunities are becoming more and more important, which also means that we have to include them even more systematically in our internal risk reporting. Not surprisingly, we also have to take ESG criteria into consideration, particularly when taking our investment decisions in the business case evaluation. That doesn't have to live somewhere in the finance systems.

It really has to be filled with life, which means that when we do business reviews, be it on corporate, be it on divisional, be it on local level, in the same way in which we discuss financial information, we have to talk even more about non-financial KPIs. Clearly the discussion of the relevant ESG KPIs is going to be integrated even more closely into all our business review activities. Of course, also into the activities of internal audit to make sure that the controls we define for the ESG KPIs are lived with the same quality like we know it from our financial KPIs. That takes me to page 29.

Something which I guess many of you will have noticed already, that we have also taken the decision to integrate non-financial and financial KPIs more closely in our annual report, where we have instead of having an annual report and a separate CSR report, we have merged the two for all steering relevant KPIs. We also provide increased transparency in what I hope is an easy-to-read format for you in the form of ESG presentation and an ESG stat book. We've had an IR stat book for the financials for many, many years now. We hope that you will find the ESG stat book with all relevant ESG KPIs as useful as the stat book for the regular financials. Of course, that is a moving target, because as you all know, there's not the one ESG reporting standard. I still hope that one day we may get there.

For the time being, we try to give information in different formats, and we will, of course, enhance our ESG disclosure going forward also to implement new regulations like the EU taxonomy. Which takes me to page 30. That is a decision which will be proposed to the AGM on the 6th of May. We obviously are, I think it only makes sense to also link a part of the corporate board incentivization to ESG. The proposal to the AGM is that the annual variable pay, which is paid out partially in the following year, partially with a two-year delay, that 30% of this annual variable pay for the corporate board will be linked to ESG targets, 10% for E, 10% for S, and 10% for G.

I think that shows that we are really very committed as a corporate board to making our sustainability aspiration come true over the next years. Much for the G pillar. Before I hand back to Frank, maybe a quick CFO comment on the EUR 7 billion, which Frank already talked about. On page 31, you can see a rough indication of the phasing of those EUR 7 billion over time. I mean, it's EUR 7 billion over a decade. We all know that there is a natural element of forward-looking uncertainty. Of course, we have used many assumptions to calculate the EUR 7 billion, but there is some solid modeling behind it. You can see that it is a bit back-end loaded and that over time, the gray bars get larger than the yellow bars. The gray bars are aviation, and that is sustainable aviation fuel.

There, at the moment, there is a very limited supply. Our assumption is that over time, the supply side will go up, and that by 2030, we will be able, as Frank already said, to have a 30% SAF plant, and that of course then also explains why in year 10, in 2030, we have the highest gray bar. In the earlier years, particularly now in our current guidance time horizon 2021 to 2023, it is predominantly on the fleet side and on the building side. We will continue this decarbonizing of our last mile. We will work on the buildings where technology and supply is available today, and that is, of course, included in our guidance for just 2021 to 2023. With that, I hand back to Frank for the wrap-up.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Thank you, Melanie and Thomas. May I go straight away to page 33? Here you see the whole picture again of the purpose we have, which will be supported by the three pillars, as we just explained. The summary of all the targets, starting with the SBTi target for carbon reduction. Of course, the usage of sustainable fuel, our zero-emission 2050 remains in place. We have pretty clear goals as well with regard to employee engagement, health and safety, and women in leadership positions. The ESG is not only that we will consist a report about that, but also we will link it, of course, to external standard, even if Melanie was right saying there is still work to be done for everybody to get to a common standard somewhere in the next years.

For the time being, we will link it, of course, to the main well-known ones. The ESG targets will be a part of our remuneration so that it's also here clearly visible. All of that should be supported by our 1% of net profit investment into our carbon programs. Final page, it only shows that our new circle is well linked to our overall strategy. It's a great reflection of what we intend to do anyway in the strategy. That makes us confident that we also can execute this swiftly because our colleagues inside of the organization will very much understand easily what kind of priorities we have, how they are linked to our overall strategy.

We have learned that now in the last three strategy circles that you have to bring it in something which is understandable also from the inside, because then you get your retraction. With that, thank you very much for listening, and I hand over back to Martin.

Martin Ziegenbalg
EVP, Investor Relations, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Okay, operator, if you then please start the Q&A round.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen at this time we will begin our question and answer session. Anyone who wish to answer the question may press star followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue you may press star followed by two, if you are using the speaker equipment today please raise your hand before making a selection. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this timeThe first question comes the line of Neil Glynn with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Neil Glynn
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Good morning, everybody. I hope all are well. If I can ask three questions, please. The first one, just with respect to how you steer the business over the course of the next, I guess, nine years to 2030, on the subject of rising costs and whether that's Sustainable Aviation Fuel or others. I am just interested in your take, does this put more pressure or provide more opportunities to take the next steps to digitize the cost base and achieve more labor efficiency gains in that period? A second question on procurement by DGF. Obviously, you're in control to whatever extent with the assets that you actually have responsibility for, but I'm interested in terms of how you will actually govern and make decisions on third-party carriers that you will work with going forward.

Over time, might that even suggest more concentration among the top carriers on the air and the ocean side for DGF? The third question on developing economies. How much visibility do you feel you have in emerging markets on things like infrastructure development relative to Europe? How big an uncertainty and a risk factor is that as we progress through the decade?

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. May I take the first and the third, and then Melanie answers the second? For us, it's important to get really traction that the organization understands that we are serious about that. The signal with the EUR 7 billion is not only to you as investors or the public, it's also internally we are serious about that, so that people now really start into alternatives which we might find. Of course, also explain that then to customers what we are doing and how serious we are. We have a lot of customers who have their own ambitious roadmap. These things together, I think it will give us significantly more momentum. Of course, combining that with digitalization, it should give us more efficiencies. Of course, we should have a better route planning. We should have a better usage of fuel on the airplanes.

These things are coming together. The lessons learned I have from the digitalization agenda is that we really got tremendous momentum after we said, "You have to do that, but there's no money left." In digitalization, we see already that people are now spending the money, and we also see that the benefits are increasing over time. Yes, it will, in combination with digitalization, give us another boost and to become more effective, more efficient, have better offers to our customers. On the other one, of course, that is maximum complexity. The good news is the majority of our carbon footprint, of course, is linked to the major markets, U.S., Europe, and China. All three parts have a clear carbon reduction target.

If we miss the goal in one or the other country because they just have not the infrastructure to be it, but the majority of our carbon footprint is by connecting these parts of the world, which have very clear agendas to become more carbon neutral.

Melanie Kreis
CFO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. Hi, Neil. On your second question, that's of course the big topic. When you look at our CO₂ footprint in 2020, two-thirds is aviation. Another way to slice it, 75% is Scope three. The biggest footprint is from the flying in Express and in Global Forwarding. It's very clear that we won't be able to solve the problem and get to our new targets on our own. We will have to work with carriers. We have to work much more in alliances going forward. I think the good thing is, given our size, given also the close collaboration between Express and Global Forwarding, we are, I think, in a good position here. A lot needs to be done still also on the basics. For example, things like the book and claim concept.

If we say we buy sustainable aviation fuel and it is kind of filled into the broader tanks and then ends up in one of our partner flights, we have to be able to book those CO₂ credits. I think that's common logic, but it's not fully accepted yet on the accounting side. One of our key priorities now will be to work with carriers, with partners on establishing those principles so that we can then jointly for the aviation industry, make progress.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. It will remain, of course, that will change over time. Certain things, of course, I really reduce that. Of course, it's easier in Scope one and two. In Scope three, of course, there will be a continuation of offsetting but increasingly amount of insetting as well. This is not one step, it's a journey. Of course, it becomes better and better over time. The more sophisticated our suppliers, who are under equally pressure as any company, fortunately, the more it will become better because then we don't have to source from them and they will start sourcing themselves. Of course, then we can offer alternatives to our customers knowing that certain airlines are using more sustainable fuel.

Neil Glynn
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Great. Thank you for such detail.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

You're welcome.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Alexia Dogani with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Alexia Dogani
Analyst, Barclays

Yeah. Good afternoon. I just had two questions, please. Just firstly, on your targets for the level of electrification for the last-mile delivery, can you just discuss how kind of StreetScooter falls in this or not, and what your plans are with regards to that? Just secondly, in terms of sort of overall sustainable logistics, have you seen that your customers are willing to pay more for sustainable solutions? Kind of how can you enable them to reach their own kind of decarbonization targets? Thank you.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. Alexia, so maybe I take the second and Melanie the first. This is, of course, here in our assessment, it's assumed that customers will not pay. I think we should have to think about that in the following way. My hope is after we made a bold statement today that others in our industry will follow. We can't solve that problem. We are 0.4% of the total carbon footprint, so we need to meet more people who are adaptive to that. If that happens, then we all face, well, significantly higher costs, which of course, if everybody does the same, will lead to higher pricing in the market and then customers have to pay for that service. On the other side, they want to be carbon free as well. If it doesn't happen, which is also a scenario, I will say, "Okay, I don't mind.

Let's see." We will have a competitive advantage. In the case that we have to bite the bullet for EUR 7 billion, we will gain market share because there will be customers who might not be willing to pay, but they can't find then alternatives to us. Scenario A is the whole industry following our leading example is going on that, I will see when we will definitely see price increases because the customers have to pay for it. If you think about what it means for landed costs, the carbon footprint of our industry will only increase low single digit the cost of the landed cost. If others are saying, "I want to have carbon-free product," then they have to pay for it, and it will not inflate their cost either.

If that doesn't happen, then the second is we probably can't push it through because our prices would be not competitive. We at least would get more market share because our customers would benefit from our carbon reduction. One or the other will happen. In both cases, I think as a leader, you are well positioned. My expectation is that we will see a shortage on sustainable fuel and the companies who commit first will probably have long-term competitive advantage to the competitors.

Melanie Kreis
CFO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

On the StreetScooter question. We started building StreetScooters ourselves many years ago because we saw the need for an electric last-mile delivery vehicle. That fundamental need is obviously still there and even more so today than a couple of years ago. What has changed is that we obviously don't have to build the StreetScooters ourselves. I think it was clearly the right idea, but it's not the most economical way for us to do it with an in-house production. At the moment, we have 15,000 electric last-mile delivery vehicles out there. We plan to ramp that up to 80,000 by the year 2030. We are now phasing out StreetScooter in a gradual way. We will still build several thousand StreetScooters, as long as there is a limited supply of commercially available alternatives.

Over the next years, there will be commercially available alternatives at a more attractive price point, and that is why we are switching from StreetScooter to more standard electric last-mile vehicles.

Alexia Dogani
Analyst, Barclays

Great. Thank you very much.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

You're welcome.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone. The next question comes from the line of Adrian Pehl with Commerzbank. Please go ahead.

Adrian Pehl
Analyst, Commerzbank

Yes. Hi, everybody. Good morning. Two questions from my side. A question asked on your suppliers actually brings me to the topic. Would you rate your suppliers on ESG following the same framework that you have just presented to us, or would you continue to rely on whatever external rating they claim to have? The second question is, since your strategy is to a large degree depending on aircraft fuel and fuel, too, lower fuel might not be available at any quantity in the future. Is there a plan B that you have? Would you do more on CO₂ efficiency in other areas, or how should we think of it? Thank you.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yes. We have not taken the final decision how we will rate the suppliers. Of course, we will look into these things. As Melanie said, there are many standards, and we probably will follow first more the external standards if they are qualifying for that as well. It is a journey, and we will see so many changes. There are so many activities going on, and that's great to see. Let's see what the future will bring. Of course, we will ask our suppliers as well about how they measure that, what is their GRI or whatever, so that we get more consistency, and maybe we end up as well to say, okay, we measure our suppliers as well along our framework.

Melanie Kreis
CFO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. Just to add to that, as I said, we have our supplier code of conduct, and we expect our suppliers to sign the supplier code of conduct, accepting, hence, our standards. That's the first thing. As I mentioned, we are also doing our internal analysis on what are high-risk categories and what are high-risk suppliers in those high-risk categories. That is something where we will probably not just rely on information being given to us, but we'll also do more audits ourselves going forward.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. On the SAF, at the moment, it's true, we don't know yet if we get to that level and how we get to that level. I think the commitment we are now giving will enable others as well to start building facilities. I believe we will see significant momentum gaining in the next five years. Of course, the next five years will be a challenge, and it will be mainly sustainable biofuel, but the technology is now imminent. If you talk, and we talk to the energy companies for quite some time already, they all understand that they have to go along this way, and they have enough capacity to invest as well for the longer. Of course, we have to join them somehow. I believe we will see significant progress in the course of a decade.

If that doesn't happen, which I doubt it doesn't happen, we, of course, have to accelerate other stuff and look into all other alternatives. The problem is our carbon footprint is two-thirds related to the flying, we can't overcome. Even if it would be zero carbon emission on the rest, we would not probably reach our goal with 29 million tons. Even if everything else would be carbon neutral, because the carbon footprint of the air is quite sizable in our case.

Melanie Kreis
CFO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Just to add on that, as Frank said, we obviously have to tackle the aviation topic. I think the logistics industry overall has to tackle the aviation topic. Whilst there's work ongoing on electric planes and so on, I think for the next decade, we need better solutions which are working with the existing aircraft, which will fly for quite a long time, and that is why we are pushing the whole SAF element so strongly. I think given that this is at an early stage, by having large players like us making such clear statements, I think that is also going to help develop the market over time. As I said before, I think this is really an area where we will have to work very strongly with industrial alliances to get to the right level.

Adrian Pehl
Analyst, Commerzbank

Right. Just very quickly following up, I guess you're probably not providing any guidance on CapEx having just reported. Is the program that you've outlined for us today rather, let's say, pushing CapEx for the three-year time period you have just provided a bit up, or is that perfectly baked into what you've been saying so far?

Melanie Kreis
CFO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. Thank you for the question, Adrian. Just to be totally clear, this is of course included in our guidance for the year 2021 and also in our medium-term guidance for 2023. When we came up with the guidance just two weeks ago, we already had our sustainability calculations lying next to us in parallel to make sure that we don't have to change our guidance after just two weeks. As I tried to show on the one slide with the gray and yellow bars. Big chunk is actually coming in the later years due to SAF. The main part now in the beginning is further electrification of the last mile, which we have been working on for quite some time. See the StreetScooter question from Alexia earlier. There's nothing totally surprising or shocking in the current guidance.

Adrian Pehl
Analyst, Commerzbank

Right.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. On SAF, currently it's assumed that we pay a certain money for the SAF, we have to work out in due course, of course not in the next two years, because that will not happen, if it would be smarter to join a consortia with building a fuel farm, for instance, then it's more CapEx than operation cost. That's a decision we have to take later, Samuel, what is smarter and what's a better way to get to sustainable fuel. If you invest CapEx, of course, then the price you pay for the fuel is lower. If you don't go into the risk of the CapEx, of course the fuel price will be higher. That needs to be worked out with partners we might find.

Adrian Pehl
Analyst, Commerzbank

Right. Okay. Just very last question from my side. It's probably very much out in the future, but, on the other hand, given that you're obviously currently generating excess free cash flow, partially you're giving back to investors in the form of share buybacks and dividends. Would you at some point in time also considering to make ESG some sort of, let's say, remuneration in the sense of giving back something to the society and not paying out dividends, but do more on the ESG targets in the future? Would that be an option or not? Thank you.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. This is actually, at the end of the day as well, how the market will rate that. At the moment, we have not such plans, but I believe we can bring the three dimensions, employer, customers, and shareholders together as we have done in the last decade, so we don't have to penalize one for the other. Of course, if we could accelerate our journey through more investment and it would be appreciated by the investor base by saying, "We are happy that you are doing that," then of course you might take a different decision. I think it's a starting point, Somehow, what communication we give today. Of course we will learn on the next years what also investors, if I look into the index development or the development of index funds for sustainability, it's quite impressive. There's a lot of money.

If we get rewards for our story and higher, and we see an appreciation of the share price because we are valued more and the higher multiplier because our company is more sustainable, then we might take a different decision than when we don't see that. That is a decision we don't have in our hands. At the moment, we are not assuming a fundamental change, but if that happens and the companies which are greener get a higher multiplier, then of course we might consider to accelerate certain journeys even.

Adrian Pehl
Analyst, Commerzbank

Perfect. Thank you.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

You're welcome.

Operator

The next question comes the line of Sumit Mehrotra with Societe Generale. Please go ahead.

Sumit Mehrotra
Analyst, Societe Generale

Thank you. Again, I'm just picking up on the EUR 7 billion in investments and mainly coming from SAF here. I'm just trying to find little bit more about what are you actually hinting at in terms of infrastructure that you're targeting for SAF here. Is this, as Frank just mentioned, fuel farms investments or production infrastructure, transport infrastructure that we have in mind? Also, are you basically hinting at that you will going to procure a sustainable fuel on your own, and then you are going to provide it for airlines or for your own fleet? How's this plan going to work out? Secondly, if you could highlight some specific metrics that would feed into your S and G buckets for management remuneration. You highlight a 10% split each across three metrics. That would be great to know. Thank you.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah. Maybe moving an organizational approach, and then Melanie can share a little bit more detail. We will have now a dedicated team which will look into all these alternatives. We don't know the answer yet. In the numbers, it's more assumed that we pay a higher price for sustainable fuel than becoming an energy company ourselves. If the only way is to get to sustainable fuel by committing also CapEx into fuel farms, then we might go there. That is a job we need to be done probably in the next 24 months to get a better understanding how the industry, our suppliers, and if you talk to the energy companies, they all are very active in that field and understand that they have to create alternatives to fossil fuel.

You can talk to anybody around the world, They are all understanding fully that there is a new way how you generate, They see that as a business opportunity, which is good news. In principle, I don't want to run fuel farms myself because we are not an energy company. We are consuming that. If that's necessary and we figure out otherwise, we don't make any progress, we might consider that somehow. We have set up a team which is only fully dedicated. Not the divisions in our company will independently look. We will centrally coordinate that so that we have a consistent approach how we secure fuel for internal purposes and also to external, to the partners. With that, I hand over to Melanie for more detail on other aspects of that.

Melanie Kreis
CFO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

I think Frank already mentioned the important point. What we have assumed for making our calculation of the EUR 7 billion is, we looked at how much SAF need will we have over time getting to the 30% blend ratio 2030 to achieve our science-based targets. What are the projections on availability of SAF over the time, what the assumed price delta between sustainable aviation fuels and standard jet fuel? The basic assumption here was that we would be buying, and that we would not start producing SAF ourselves. I think that is still the fundamental hypothesis. We have done first pilots at the airport in Amsterdam, at the airport in San Francisco.

As Frank said, it is something where everybody is still learning, and we may come to a point where we have to make a longer-term commitment, to really get the wider-scale production going. I think that is a little bit learning by doing. With regard to the ESG KPIs, so, on the ESG pillar, we had the KPI employee engagement in our annual employee opinion survey for many years now. That is also audited by PwC with reasonable assurance. Thomas mentioned LTIFR as a potential second important KPI here. On the ESG pillar, we have ideas on a couple of KPIs, for example, around the core compliance training and so on.

What we will now the AGM is first of all changing the remuneration scheme for an E, S, and G component. We will first implement that for the year 2022, when we will then also come up with the specific KPIs to be used for E, S, and G.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Yeah, maybe final thing on that. We have, of course, the team I just talked about, but also look into funding from governments. The EU has earmarked a lot of money. The U.S. has earmarked a lot of money. China has committed to become carbon neutral in 2060, carbon free, actually. We have to look into that as well. Of course, that is a significant lever as well. If the governments are understanding a transformation of that scale, is not an easy business case, but needs funding as well from the governments. Not in a way for subsidies of certain products, but more for enabling companies to get a reasonable business case by subsidizing sustainable fuel, for instance, out of technology. Of course, we have to look into that, what is a better alternative.

We will probably come back to you on an annual basis anyway to explain more what we are doing there, because it's complex in a way, and it's not easy to get from here where we want to be, and that needs several iterations, where I can't even tell you by heart now how much would be OpEx and how much would be CapEx.

Sumit Mehrotra
Analyst, Societe Generale

Thank you very much for your thoughts. Thank you so much.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Welcome.

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions, so I hand back to Martin Ziegenbalg for closing comments.

Martin Ziegenbalg
EVP, Investor Relations, Deutsche Post DHL Group

Great. Thanks, Emma, before handing over to Frank for his closing remark, I want to thank Melanie, Thomas, and Frank for taking the time to introduce you to our ESG roadmap, which I'm sure we will continue to have a dialogue on with you over the next weeks and months and years, as this is part of the whole scope of themes we are keen to discuss with our investors also going forward. Without further ado, Frank, for your closing remarks. Yeah, thank you for joining us this morning. We actually, as a senior management team, are pretty excited about what we have put together. We believe that this will make a lot of sense to our customers, our people, and hopefully to you as well. We have clear roadmaps defined along the ESG dimensions. I have no doubt that we will get very good traction.

Frank Appel
CEO, Deutsche Post DHL Group

After we started the whole journey in 2008, I think it's now the next S-curve of performance, and we want to be seen in our industry as leader in the industry, and I believe that we will achieve that goal again with that approach. With that, thank you very much for listening to us today, and hopefully we can see each other sooner or later again in person in roadshows or whatever. Thank you very much, and bye for today.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.